Allan Bloom was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1930 to Jewish social-worker parents. The couple had a daughter, Lucille, in 1928, and the birth of Allan two years later completed the family group. As a thirteen-year-old, he read a Readers Digest article about the University of Chicago and told his parents he wanted to attend; his parents thought it was unreasonable and did not encourage his hopes. Yet, when his family moved to Chicago in 1944, his parents met a psychiatrist and family friend whose son was enrolled in the University of Chicago's humanities program for gifted students. In 1946 Bloom was accepted to the same program, starting his degree at the age of fifteen, and spending the next decade of his life enrolled at the university in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. This began his life-long passion for the 'idea' of the university.
In the preface to Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, he stated that his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato." The theme of this education was self-knowledge, or self-discovery—an idea that Bloom would later write seemed impossible to conceive of for a Midwestern American boy. He credits Leo Strauss as the teacher who made this endeavor possible for him.
In the preface to Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, he stated that his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato." The theme of this education was self-knowledge, or self-discovery—an idea that Bloom would later write seemed impossible to conceive of for a Midwestern American boy. He credits Leo Strauss as the teacher who made this endeavor possible for him.
